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When she was reconstructed, she clearly was able to absorb knowledge at a tremendous rate, and instinctively knew her purpose and a rough idea of how to accomplish it. Still, she seemed to be lacking in quite a few areas, especially as exemplified by her limited speech and need to relearn by studying the encyclopedia. So, what was The Perfect Being like before she was blown to pieces?

On a related note, did the Mondoshawan plan for The Perfect Being to fall in love after they took her to Earth to save the universe, or was there some other aspect of the plan that allowed her to stop the dark planet without meeting someone and falling in love?

I think you're underestimating her capabilities. Leeloo was shown to be completely capable of speech within moments of her reconstruction. However, it was in an antiquated language unrecognizable to humans. Despite their rather insular nature, it is reasonable to assume the Mondoshawan's continue to speak said language, and it was her interactions with them that led to her knowledge of it.

Similarly, her lack of comprehension for human history pertains to just that. HUMAN history. Remember, she had been removed from human affairs for some time, and even before there is no indication that, while in the sarcophagus, she was conscious. Father Cornelius makes note that she has a lot of 'catching up' to do, and that is exactly what is going on. Leeloo seems to store all information at a genetic level, meaning she has total comprehension of everything she has experienced as soon as she awakens after reconstruction.

As for the Mondoshawan plan... Leeloo's experiences, particularly when learning about the atrocities committed by humans on their own kind, deeply affected her psyche. Prior to that exposure, she was evidently highly motivated in her purpose -being saving the universe-. Likely, prior to being exposed to the rather unavoidable evils of the universe, she had no reason to want anything but its protection. Afterwards, however, she was subject to that unfortunate thing called doubt.

I think there is also some rather extensive misconception regarding the functioning of the weapon and it's elemental references. Having studied the site extensively, I disagree with the notion that 'love' was the 5th element. Leeloo remains that component to the weapon. Instead, it was love which allowed Leeloo to overcome the doubt as to whether or not the universe was worth saving. It was an external inclusion which, for lack of a better description, 'fixed' the circuit. It restored Leeloo's faith in creation, and thus her resolve, bringing her back into alignment with the other elemental components.

I wouldn't say it's superfluous, as the brain still serves an important function in the regulation, automation and conscious control of the body. However, based on her knowledge and vocal skills, having just been reconstructed from a charred hand, it's clear that Leeloo doesn't store information in the same way Humans do.

The sheer amount of information capable of being stored in her DNA could mean that everything she needs to know is in every cell of her body. Her DNA is so complex there could even be a way of updating her memories into DNA constantly.

Sorry to hijack this thread, but your post made me think of a common trope in fantasy/scifi writing. Does it bother anyone else that humans seem to be the only "good" race that fights amongst itself? Vulcans, Elves,asari, wookies, they all get along with their own race perfectly well, and share the same gods or idols or whatever, and everything on their planet/in their forest or whatever is a peaceful land of peaceful peace, and the food is exotic, and pussy farts smell like strawberries.

Why is that? Everyone else who goes to war with others of their own kind are the evil ones, the orcs, the krogan, dark elves, goblins, everyone hates them. They are usually the people fucking up the place and causing humans to have to intervene in the first place.

Why are we the only ones who have more than one culture? Why aren't there Bothans that are racist AGAINST OTHER BOTHANS? There is no nationalism, no division at all, and the only time someone of one of the good races does something bad is because they are a social outlier? No one from Wookieland says, "I don't like Wookiestanians, they are a bunch of cunts over there."

Actually, the Vulcans fit another trope, being Beyond Fighting Amongst Themselves. In their history, they suffered multiple nuclear wars and almost destroyed themselves. Even the revolution led by the followers of logic inspired nuclear conflict, and those who could not live under it fled the planet to found the Romulan Empire, where backstabbing and plotting amongst individuals and factions is the norm. A Protestant Reformation-like wave of renewed devotion to logic was even shown in the fourth season of Enterprise.

It always seems to me that one species is far superior culturally to its backwards and evil counterpart. Why do we always see the Romulans as evil bastards, and why are all ferengii driven to be sales people, or whatever. My point is that Worf is a Klingon, and he speaks Klingon. Spock is a Vulcan and he speaks Vulcan (ignoring that they also speak English). All the Klingons we see are basically the same, no one gets into what the Klingons at the equator wear, as opposed to those in more temperate zones or subarctic zones. Elves speak Elven, dwarves speak dwarven, wookies all growl in the same dialect, and there are no nations mentioned anywhere. It just irks me that every civilization is either homogenous or backwards and tribal.

In Larry Niven's Known Space, you actually see a form of this developing on Earth. It's called Flatlander culture, and it's caused by the widespread availability of teleportation booths. Suddenly, everywhere is just a five minute walk away. If you live in Wyoming but you feel like grabbing some sushi in Tokyo and then popping over to Easter Island for a few minutes, you just booth from place to place.

As a result, culture homogenizes across the entire planet. Some people don't like the way that it makes Earth one big monoculture, with very minor differences from place to place. I can't say if it's plausible or not that a culture would do that, given access to easy planetwide transport, but it is at least one explanation of how it could happen.

Cultural homogenization explains some of it. Many alien races have had advanced tech much longer than we have, and eventually they probably ended up with a monoculture due to their entire planet being essentially 'next door' for commuting and conversational purposes. 30+ generations of that and you're probably going to end up with a single planetary language with some accent/dialect differences. This also accounts for why we rarely see internal conflict between nations on alien worlds - technology has shrunk the world to the point where a single government makes the best sense.

It's also partly because the story is almost always told from a human POV and we're a bunch of racist/speciesist bastards. There's a certain degree of unintentional 'you all look the same to me' going on here, I'm sure. From my perspective here in the US, the political goings-on of most other countries are gibberish without a bit of research. I barely understand my own government sometimes, let alone being able to work out what a faction of dissidents in Thailand (the country) are bent out of shape over. Not only don't I know the parties involved, but the whole situation is heavily colored by cultural influences I have no awareness of or experience with. And that's the same species, on the same planet.

Imagine for a moment that we met an alien species that has a sort of berzerker mode they go into when they're 'in heat' and they pretty much stay that way until they get off. They have their cycle once every couple of days, and as a result it isn't uncommon for someone to pounce and have non-consensual sex at you a few times a week. Try explaining to these guys why human beings get so upset about rape. To them it would be like suffering a major emotional trauma because it was raining. That same kind of cultural divide would probably impact any discussion of cultural/national/political differences in other races. The specific names and areas of the groups aside, their differences may be over things that seem absurd to us, or are just totally outside our ability to readily grok.

We don't see this in fiction very often because it's hard or impossible to write something that is totally outside a human thought pattern, and because the average reader/viewer isn't going to give enough fucks for it to sell very well. It's too bad though, I think that fully realized xenocultures are far more interesting.

This is really a meta-argument about fiction in general... Few species in fantasy or science fiction are fully realized, but are rather parodies of certain human aspects. There are a few universe which have evolved beyond that paradigm (Forgotten Realms/D&D, Lord of the Rings, Elder Scrolls, Star Trek & Wars etc) but it remains present in, particularly, young fiction.

In many ways, though, racism evolved along with science. At least amongst humans. Prior to the advent of scientific principals and the drive for categorization, there was just the simple assumption that people who live far away looked different. There wasn't any inherent inequality. It is thus reasonable to assume that primitive cultures on other worlds may follow the same track

Likewise, some races, such as the Asari and Vulcans, both went through their periods of racism, infighting and wholesale violence, eventually moving past that towards the unity we are exposed to. Humans are often portrayed as in-between period of growing social and ethical equality but still lingering visages of our past 'barbaric' history.

I like to think of humans as a goodly race for the fact that we try to get along with different cultures. Homogenous cultures are victorious cultures. I picture that all wookies having the same culture meaning that at one point that culture has conquered the planet and wiped out all others.

Oh, and Vulcans are not an example of this trope, Romulans are a different culture of the same race. There are also some Vulcans who reject the culture of cool logic, like Spock's half brother.

They may not have large-scale wars, because they don't form large nations (they have city-states run by direct democracy), however, there are places like Illium where the Asari are the majority and that planet is rife with all kinds of backstabbing, assassinations, mercenary gangs, etc.

This is exactly how I always thought the events were meant to be viewed, to the letter. I’m just a little surprised that there’s more than one person besides OP who thought it was the way OP described.

Not sure about the first part, but I can answer the second. Love wasn't essential for the process to work, love isn't the 'Fifth Element' or anything like that.

When she was talking to Korben Dallas she was asking WHY the world is worth saving when there is so much pain and death and anger and suffering and horrible things like that. Her education was very one sided, she knew the terrors of the universe but NOT its wonders!

So he convinced her that life was worth saving because love was a beautiful thing, which got her to either consciously or subconsciously activate the elements and stop Mr. Shadow from killing everything.

I can only assume the Leeloo pre-cloning was already aware of all the goodness that exists, and would not need to be convinced that life had more good in it than bad.

Or alternately that she was unaware of the badness that exists. The Mondoshawans have carefully managed the previous defeats of Mr. Shadow, it's possible they kept Leeloo in a very insular environment.

The Fifth Element is Life; even in medieval alchemy this was the case, and it's the case in the movie. We're told that "fire burns, water falls, wind blows..." We're not told what earth does, I assume it quakes.

And what does life do? It loves. In order to activate the weapon, Life had to Love. Corbin had to be there, and Leeloo had to love him.

Life does not love, it perseveres. The alchemical representation of the Element of Life isn't the capacity, or even the inclusion of Love, but rather the tenacious ability to overcome obstacles. Life, to break it into its simplest terms, LIVES.

In this case, Love was simply a justification for the continuation of life, the former justification having been stripped by Leeloo's experiences regarding the harsh realities of the universe.

I was under the impression that reconstructing Leeloo into a humanoid form was... kind of an accident. I had thought that before she got destroyed she was in a dormant state, sealed inside the sarcophagus until needed.